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4Chan

This tag is associated with 3 posts

FCJ-159 /b/lack up: What Trolls Can Teach Us About Race

By ⋅ December 30, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

Tanner Higgin Independent Scholar [Abstract] I hate racists (even if I sometimes play one on the internet). Paulie Socash (Phillips, 2012) Closing Pools, Posing Questions I’d been a fringe observer of 4chan and /b/ for years, aware but ignorant of its pleasures and horrors. Then in a particularly aimless night of YouTube browsing, I watched something that plunged me into the /b/ abyss. It was a player made World of Warcraft (WOW) machinima video featuring a white human avatar dressed in plain clothes and a wide brimmed hat. This wasn’t remarkable, but what followed him—a group of dark skinned human avatars—was. Couched in a Benny Hill sensibility, the video featured a pack of ‘slaves’ who chased and were chased by the ‘slave master’ through the city of Stormwind to crowds of (one can assume) perplexed, entertained, and offended onlookers. The ‘slave chase video’ as I refer to it (it’s long…

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FCJ-158 Tits or GTFO: The logics of misogyny on 4chan’s Random – /b/

By ⋅ December 30, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

Vyshali Manivannan Rutgers University [Abstract] Introduction: The adoption of ‘cumdumpster’ On June 15, 2008, a 4channer identified as female using the colloquial portmanteau ‘femanon’, posted an erotic photograph of herself on the Random – /b/ board, and requested advice regarding a recent breakup, a marriage proposal, and whether she could easily commit marital infidelity. She asserted that the marriage would be for love but simultaneously stressed the money and government insurance she would receive by marrying an Air Force man. [1] Six minutes into the thread, moderators began editing the post, transforming the original poster’s (OP) request into an ad hominem self-assassination and banning her for authoring it. Wordfilters specifically tailored to the June 15 post in question altered this seemingly benign request for advice into a paraphilic interest in excrement, animal anthropomorphism, and transsexuals, in addition to demeaning the OP’s potential husband and insurance concerns. Wordfilters are an automated…

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FCJ-156 Hacking the Social: Internet Memes, Identity Antagonism, and the Logic of Lulz.

By ⋅ December 30, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

Ryan M. Milner College of Charleston [Abstract] Violentacrez and the Antagonistic Internet ‘A troll exploits social dynamics like computer hackers exploit security loopholes…’ (Adrian Chen, 2012 October 12) In October 2012, reddit – a popular link aggregation service and public discussion forum – was embroiled in a prominent controversy. Adrian Chen, a journalist for the news site Gawker, had just revealed the ‘offline’ identity of Violentacrez, one of reddit’s ‘most reviled characters but also one if its most beloved users’ (Chen, 2012 October 12). Violentacrez, who Chen calls ‘the biggest troll on the web’, was responsible for reddit pages (called ‘subreddits’) like ‘r/Jailbait’ (sexualised photos of young girls) and ‘r/Creepshots’ (sexualised photos of women taken in public without their consent). Chen accuses Violentacrez of releasing ‘an unending fountain of racism, porn, gore, misogyny, incest, and exotic abominations yet unnamed’ to reddit. To Chen, Violentacrez ‘hacked’ social dynamics with his posts,…

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